ISPs Fight For Subscribers Accused of Illegal Porn Downloads

A group of US internet service providers is continuing its battle against porn studio AF Holdings, which is accusing more than a thousand of the ISPs' customers of piracy.

ISPs including Verizon,
AT&T, Bright House and Cox are appealing a District of Columbia court decision last year by Judge Beryl Howell ordering them to reveal the identities of 1,058 subscribers accused of illegally downloading adult movies on BitTorrent.

Otis D. Wright, II, District Judge (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The ISPs say that many of the users being targeted aren't actually the individuals who downloaded the files, thanks to the use of unsecured and shared internet connections in customers' homes.

"The contact information that Plaintiff seeks is not necessarily a reliable indicator of the true identities of the ‘Does’ who allegedly downloaded Plaintiff’s pornography," they say. Many of the subscribers concerned live nowhere near the District of Columbia - indeed, three of the ISPs concerned, Cox, AT&T and Bright House, don't even offer residential internet service in the area.

The ISPs also describe the decision as opening the floodgates for 'coercive and unjust' settlements.

AF Holdings is following a tried and tested pattern with the lawsuit: sue a large number of people for copyright infringement in one action; seek leave to take early discovery and obtain the identities of the IP subscribers concerned; and then issue a demand for a comparatively low settlement, in the hope that subscribers will play ball out of embarrassment at being named in a suit involving porn.

Apparently headquartered on the Caribbean island of Nevis, the company has no assets apart from the copyright to several porn movies, including the film
Popular Demand, cited in the DC case. Indeed, according to the ISPs, it's no more than a front for the law firm involved, Prenda Law.

In a separate court decision recently, Los Angeles district judge Otis Wright asked several Prenda lawyers to explain their legal strategy - and the lawyers refused on the grounds that this would incriminate them. It now appears that at least two of Prenda Law's 'clients' are in fact shell companies owned by Prenda itself.

"Evidence elicited in the related AF Holdings case reflects that Plaintiff’s cases are being prosecuted for the sole benefit of Prenda Law’s principals, who are the beneficial owners of Plaintiff and have created fake owners or forged signatures in court filings to hide their interests in these cases," the DC appeal reads.

The timing couldn't be better for the ISPs and their subscribers, with Judge Wright describing Prenda in scathing terms: "Copyright laws originally designed to compensate starving artists allow starving attorneys in this electronic-media era to plunder the citizenry," he said in his ruling. "It is clear that the Principals’ enterprise relies on deception."

The chances are, then, that the ISPs will be successful in their appeal. And there will almost certainly be a ripple effect, with judges likely in future to be far more critical of such blanket copyright cases. Could the reign of the copyright trolls at last be coming to an end?